Where no one can hear you screaming
by Argentum Anubis
Summary: Yamori grins maniacally behind his mask. "Don't worry," he tells the boy as Kaneki writhes in pain. "We are in a place where no one can hear you screaming." Warnings: This includes spoilers for volume 7 and 8/episodes 10-12 (or something like that...), and may be too disturbing for some readers [read at your own risk].


**Warning! Contains Spoilers!**

 **Also, this is not for the weak-stomached. Some of the descriptions may be too disturbing and/or gory for some readers** (hence the rating).

 **Author's Note:** Okay, so to those of you who read this AU- Yay for you! This story will make sense to you!

Okay, so during volume 7 and 8/episodes 10-12 (or something like that...), Kaneki is held by Yamori and the other Aogiri Tree Ghouls. By volume 8 and episode 12, Kaneki has escaped. However, this fanfiction is focused around the idea that he never escaped, was never rescued, and that the ghoul hunters never stormed the headquarters. I wanted to focus more on the idea that Kaneki can't escape and is too afraid to confront the ghoul within him, which comes with its price.

As always, please send a review my way and let me know how I did.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Kaneki, Tokyo Ghoul, etc. All I did was write this fanfiction.

* * *

 **Where no one can hear you screaming**

Kaneki sits, slumped against the back of the chair. His head is resting on his shoulder and his limbs are at awkard angle. But it doesn't matter. It isn't like it hurts, compared to the pain he has been through for the last... how long has it been? Days? Weeks? It feels like years.

Yamori was taking a break.

"Ha..." he says straight-faced. "He needs to take a break..."

As if the maniacal ghoul is the one who needed a break. He- Kaneki- is the one who needs the break.

But the breaks in between torture sessions only makes the pain seem so much worse each time. During each break, his flesh, previously torn apart from the other ghoul's 'fun,' would finish knitting together, letting him heal enough to start to feel better only for everything to start over all over again. The clamps would break through his fresh layer of skin and- He would continue counting.

Why can he count during the pain, but he can't figure out how long he's been here?

"It doesn't matter," he says to the empty chamber. He'd begun to start talking to himself five torture sessions ago. Thanks to the counting that Yamori makes him do, he is still sane and can remember the torture painfully well, even if he no longer has a concept of time.

Thinking about it agitates him and he nervously pops his fingers, which are tried behind his back- a nervous habit that he has picked up from his tormentor.

His mind begins to drift once again and he thinks back to Anteiku. "I wonder if they are alright... Ayato never would tell me if Touka was okay. What if she's... I mean, that would explain why no one has come for me..."

Unable to stand the idea of his friend being seriously injured- or worse- he bites down on his lip, popping his fingers some more.

The image of Rize appears in his mind. "You know... if you ever want to get out of here, now would be pretty much like your last chance." She adjusts her glasses, which had been slipping some down her nose as she looks down at the pathetic-looking boy.

"What do you mean?" inquires Kaneki quietly, disheartened from the many hours of torment that he had so far endured.

"What I mean is, you've been here for at least a month. If you don't get human meat soon, your body will stop regenerating. And you know what that means, don't you? It means your body wont be able to handle any more and you will _die_."

Kaneki remains silent. He stares down at the ground, surprised to see a new person staring back at him in a puddle of pretty red liquid that has gathered around the base of his chair. The person has dead black eyes and dying white hair.

"I-is that...?"

Rize nods. "Yes. This is what you have become. And your condition wont get any better if you don't kill Yamori now and get out of here. Otherwise you're as good as gone."

"That might not be so bad," says Kaneki, still studying his reflection. "I mean, being dead shouldn't hurt as much as this does, right?

Rize scoffs at him. "You're hopeless. Not only do you not care what happens to you anymore, but you don't even want to punish the bastard doing all of this to you." She turns her back and begins to walk away, her heels clicking as she does so. She waves over her shoulder, calling back to him, "goodbye, Ken Kaneki. It was fun while it lasted." She disappears through one of the stained, grey walls.

Kaneki is ripped away from his daydreaming by the needle stabbing into his eye, the only place that could be punctured that would leave him completely defenseless.

As soon as Yamori yanks the bloody tip of the needle out of his pupil, he squeezes it shut. His other eye closes with it in reaction to the pain. The pain pulses in his skull and he bites his lips and gums until they are raw and his mouth is full of metallic blood.

When it finally heals, taking longer to heal, as Rize had said since his regeneration abilities are fading, he can hear the sound of Yamori preparing for the torture: tools clinking and clacking as he placed them on the ground. Despite being so crazy from his own torture, Yamori was still methodical about it.

And then, Yamori is turning to face him, an excited grin spreading across the ghoul's wide face. The smile is hidden as he puts on his mask. He calls in a sing-song voice to his victim. "time to get started!"

It begins as it always does, with the clamps being placed around his fingers and toes, with them being taken off, one by one. Kaneki counts as he grits his teeth and listens to the sickening thumps as his digits hit the ground. At one point, Yamori pauses and Kaneki's muscles let themselves relax even though Kaneki knows that he should never relax, not with the envirnonment he is in. And then: " _Snap_!"

Even as he is screaming and watching his right pointer finger roll around the chair, enough for his to see the gory end, with the nerves and muscles exposed. There is a small area of white near the middle of it. The bone. The read pours down, covering the bone and Kaneki has to swallow the bile filling up his mouth.

"What is one-hundred- sixty minus seven?" asks Yamori teasingly, his voice revealing his glee at the way the finger disgust the young half-ghoul.

"Wh.. One hundred... and-and fifty-three."

"Good. And after that?"

"One hundred forty-six."

Yamori chuckles as Kaneki continues to count down before resuming the torment.

After counting down from one thousand five more times, Kaneki begins to blank out from the pain, his lips moving of their own accord, no longer needing to think about the next numbers; he has it memorized. His body is numb and all he can feel is the man messing with his toes, as though he's on anesthesia, like the dentist gave him the one time when his mom had taken him to the dentist and they'd found that he'd had a cavity.

His stomach tightens and he lets out a small whimper in the back of his throat.

"Oh?" Yamori pauses mid-movement, hands resting around the clamp on his big toe.

His mom... one of the people who had...

Kaneki throws his head back and let out a scream. It was not one of physical pain as much as it was of the agony of having been left behind, left alone to deal with so much. First it was his dad, leaving him and his mom alone. They'd been alone, but at least they had been alone together. But then, this horrible world had taken her away from his side. And then he had finally thought he'd found a girl who liked him and she'd turned out to be a ghoul, the ghoul who had started this whole thing. Touka and the others had been there after that, enough to alleviate some of the pain; they'd made it bearable for him to live. But after he'd been abducted by the Aogiri Tree ghouls, any comfort he had found at Anteiku among the others had been stolen from him.

Now there was only him. And it hurt.

God, did it _hurt_.

Yamori grins maniacally behind his mask. "Don't worry," he tells the boy as Kaneki writhes in pain. "We are in a place where no one can hear you screaming."

The masked ghoul sits back for a moment to enjoy the pained expression on his subject's face.

"...Where no one can... hear you screaming... huh?" Kaneki repeats. He lets his head fall to his chest. He leaves it there and stares at his bloody legs. "No one... can hear you screaming... no one..."

Yamori moves behind him, preparing the tools. He slips a pair of clips around Kaneki's thumb- he can feel the slimy liquid that he knows is his own blood, smell the rusty odor floating through the air- and then, with a small chuckle, he pulls hard on it, tearing the boyd's thumb out of place.

"Aw, a shame," says Yamori as Kaneki clenches his jaw, tears pouring from his eyes. "It didn't come apart right. Perhaps the lack of food is making your body fall apart of its own accord? How sad. I might lose my wonderful toy soon..." Yamori let out a small chuckle that grew into loud, booming laughter. "But you certainly have lasted longer than any of my other toys. You're the best one I've ever had!"

Kaneki chokes on a sob as it continues on.

And on.

And on and on and on.

And on.

Finally, Yamori decides to take a break, removing his mask as he exits through the only door, sending a smile Kaneki's way.

But Kaneki cannot see anything through his tears.

"I've broken the toy," sighs Yamori as the door swings shut behind him. "Looks like I'll have to take care of this one later and get a new one. Maybe that little girl would be a good substitute? I'm sure Ayato wouldn't mind. Though no one will ever be as good as this little toy..."

The door clangs shut, leaving Kaneki in his solitary confinement.

With no energy left and his body refusing to regenerate, all he can do his sit there, slumped forward. His fingers and toes are no more than soaking stubs. Blood drips off of his body, creating a steady flow to the pool of scarlet around him.

Drip... Drip... Drip...

Kaneki stares forward, seeing and not seeing at the same time.

As the light fades from his eyes, the last thing he sees is his reflection in the puddle before him. Whether it is a hallucination or the universe pitying him, he sees for his last moment, what he wants to see more than anything else.

In the reflection before him, he can see his friends and family and co-workers and classmates surrounding him, hugging him and smiling. Touka is giving him a genuine smile- not the fake one that she gives her human friend whenever Yoriko brings her a large plate full of human-food. Kaneki looks on as his mother places a kiss on his cheek and wraps him in a warm hug. Nishiki is giving him the same grateful look as when Kaneki and Touka had helped him rescue his girlfriend. Mr. Yoshimura is patting his back, as though telling him that he appreciates everything that Kaneki had done for Anteiku and all of the ghouls who went there, even if he wasn't that great at making coffee. Hinami was hugging him, looking as happy as she was before her mother had died. Even Hide is there, telling him how cool it is that he is a ghoul, and that if his friend is part ghoul, then other ghouls can't be that bad, either.

Kaneki smiled, in the comforting presence of friends and family.

And he knew: he was going to be just fine, even if no one had heard his last screams.


End file.
